


Dreaming Gives One Such Bad Luck

by summerstorm



Category: Good Wife (TV)
Genre: Character of Color, Community: kissbingo, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-10-16
Updated: 2010-10-16
Packaged: 2017-10-12 17:31:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,369
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/127270
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/summerstorm/pseuds/summerstorm
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It kills time, leaving a question in the air. At least it helps Lana stop thinking about what a waste of it Kalinda's relatively irregular middle-of-the-night appearances on Lana's floor at the FBI are.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dreaming Gives One Such Bad Luck

**Author's Note:**

> For the prompt "emotion: love", sort of, with a bit of the kink-bingo prompt "guns", though I'm not counting this towards that square because it doesn't focus on that as much as I originally planned it to. Title from a poem by Anne Sexton.

Lana's beginning to get used to this.

"What are you doing here?" she asks Kalinda, although she knows Kalinda's as likely to give her a straight answer as Lana is to join a cult again, and probably for the same reason: faking it once was enough to find out it wasn't for them.

It kills time, leaving a question in the air. At least it helps Lana stop thinking about what a waste of it Kalinda's relatively irregular middle-of-the-night appearances on Lana's floor at the FBI are.

"Isn't it obvious?" says Kalinda, voice steady with hints of mockery. It's a mystery to Lana how Kalinda can sound so _unaffected_ when her hands are cuffed behind her back and Lana's searching her body for weapons. Then again, there's not much more Kalinda could sound like: to begin with, she hasn't even bothered to get out of Lana's grip, or fight back, or run off. She's just standing there, in the middle of Lana's boss's otherwise deserted office, leaning back against Lana's chest and parting her legs so Lana can get at the silver knife Kalinda's got strapped to her inner thigh, under her leather skirt.

"You tell me," Lana says, and pretends not to notice Kalinda's gasp when Lana's knuckles brush skin.

That's the main reason Lana's surprised Kalinda sounds so calm and composed: she's seen Kalinda turned on, and this is it. She'd allow a chance in ten Kalinda's faking it, just for her, but it's warm under her skirt when Lana picks out the knife, and there's a sigh-like quality to the way Kalinda breathes around sentences that's been magnified for the past five minutes, ever since Lana locked her arms behind her back and extracted two guns from her waistband.

"I came to visit," Kalinda says flatly, heel clacking on the floor as she straightens up.

Lana laughs, dry and unamused. She steps back and frees one of Kalinda's hands; she uses the short chain to drag Kalinda towards one of the visitor chairs, and hooks the empty cuff to it. The other end of the chain doesn't reach high enough to match the place where Kalinda's hand would normally stand at her full height, but instead of crouching or looking ridiculous, Kalinda stretches out her legs and bends her arms back, elbows on the back of the chair, like it's her all-time favorite way of standing.

"What's in your boots?" Lana says. It's a legitimate question; she's had many, many chances to do it, but she's never disarmed Kalinda before. It just wasn't necessary. To be honest, it still isn't; Kalinda killed two security cameras and knocked out a guard and a janitor on her way in, which has never happened before either, but if she really were trying to steal something without being seen, she wouldn't have let Lana see her. It's just—even if Kalinda's not taking it seriously, it's fun to have the upper hand.

It's not as boring as watching Kalinda rummage around files until she figures out what she's looking for, at least. Lana doesn't mind helping Kalinda out when Kalinda knows what she needs, but Kalinda's unarranged forays into FBI headquarters leave Lana with a very standby, very boring job to do; getting in Kalinda's way is significantly more enjoyable.

"What's in your boots," Lana repeats, half-assedly faking some sympathy onto her fake sunny smile—which is really not as false as it pretends to be. Whatever Kalinda came here for, it mustn't be a pressing matter, or she wouldn't still be here, but Kalinda's not telling her, and it's been a while since the last time Lana felt, on some level, like she was in charge where Kalinda was concerned. If she can, she's going to enjoy it.

"Whatever you want there to be," Kalinda says, tapping her foot into thin air. Lana kneels down to get Kalinda's boots off. She's tugging at a zipper when Kalinda adds, "You look beautiful on your knees," and gives Lana some more room between her calves.

Lana yanks her boot off a tad more forcefully than strictly necessary. "It's empty," she says, looking up. It's an accusatory tone she employs, but it's justified. The first time she slept with Kalinda in a way that required Kalinda to take off her boots, one of them was lined up with blades. It hasn't happened again, and Lana's not beyond suspecting Kalinda was working on something special or even planned it to see if it was enough to scare Lana off, knowing Kalinda had no problem carrying sharp objects sheaths away from her skin, but Lana doesn't feel comfortable ruling out the possibility that she's planned every time Lana has not found anything incriminatory in her footwear, either.

"Really, really good on your knees," Kalinda says appreciatively, bypassing Lana's non-question. Lana holds her gaze until Kalinda smiles and shakes her head, saying, "There's an army knife beneath the sole. You don't want to go to all the trouble of getting it out. You'd have to buy me new boots. But there's a revolver in the other one." She points her other boot at Lana's hand, and Lana unzips it and retrieves the small revolver without taking it off. She likes the asymmetrical look on Kalinda, one foot bare, one foot clothed.

"Anything else?" Lana rests her hand on the floor to prop herself up.

"You should stay there," Kalinda says.

Lana smiles and sneaks a hand into the boot that Kalinda's still wearing, half-circling her calf. She slides it up and around and presses her thumb and forefinger to the sides of Kalinda's knee until it gives and sends Kalinda off balance, then drags her hand up over Kalinda's thigh until Kalinda's skirt is hiked up and Lana's fingers touch underwear. She steps in closer, bracketing one of Kalinda's legs with her own, and holding onto the edge of the chair around Kalinda's ribs. "I mean it," she says, leaning in close to Kalinda's mouth. "Why are you here?"

Kalinda cocks her head and offers a one-shouldered shrug. "I came to see you." There's an emphasis on the 'see you' that Lana doesn't even know how to interpret. She's honestly relieved she's never had Kalinda as a suspect or a witness, that she's never needed to get information out of her. She mostly trusts Kalinda, but she likes her on the sidelines; interrogating her for real would be an act of faith Lana's not sure she possesses. Even now, when her eyes are a little glossy and her lids shiver every other time she blinks and her hips don't seem capable of staying a hundred percent still, Kalinda's frustratingly hard to read.

"You came to see me," Lana echoes, eying Kalinda incredulously. "Here. Just for fun."

Kalinda closes her eyes for a moment, then opens them again, clear and aware and full of disdain and resignation. "I suggested dinner. You said no."

If they weren't surrounded by silence, Lana would crack up. Instead, she just snorts, all breath, and says, "You're joking." The funny thing is, she can't tell. Kalinda did ask her to dinner last week, but with Kalinda, dinner always has ulterior motives. Kalinda's hardly the dating type. If breaking into Lana's boss's office is the equivalent of a dinner date to her, it could mean what she wants to steal is what she planned to ask of Lana at dinner just as easily as it could mean Kalinda planned tonight's little act of felony around running into Lana.

Lana has trouble coming up with anything involving her on any level that would matter enough to Kalinda to justify either option.

Kalinda's entire face shrugs: lips pressed subtly together, head slightly tilted, eyebrows microscopically raised. The kind of thing you'd only notice if you were standing as close as Lana is, but still very clearly and loudly implying that Lana's to think whatever she wants: Kalinda's not clarifying anything any time soon.

"I might be," Kalinda adds in actual words. "Or I could simply— _like_ you." She makes the word sound punctured, like a threat. It's uncanny. "Enjoy your company enough to desire it. To seek it out." She breathes deeply; there's an eerie sort of calmness to it. Lana lets her gaze drop to Kalinda's mouth when Kalinda tilts her head up towards her, but it still catches her by surprise when Kalinda arches up into Lana's body and kisses her.

It's always an interesting experience, being kissed by Kalinda. Kalinda's a ridiculously good kisser, but sometimes it feels like she knows what she's doing so well she's capable of thinking through it the whole time, like there's a spreadsheet in her head of things she wants to get out of kissing someone—out of kissing Lana—and questions she wants answered before she moves on to the next level, and Lana can't lose herself in it unless she wants all her answers to read _I could be falling in love with you_. This kiss is like that, a million times like that, Kalinda nudging her mouth open, licking along the ridge of her teeth, biting lightly on her bottom lip before pulling away so Lana will follow; it's Lana closing her eyes to stay present and focused and not allow herself to do so.

When Kalinda pulls away to say, "What do you think?" Lana manages to stay put, but she feels breathless.

Breathless, but capable of breathing: that is, after all, why she always makes the effort of keeping up. "I think you just want your weapons back."

Kalinda smirks. "I always want my weapons back. That's not the question, is it?"

"I think you wouldn't let yourself _like_ someone like me. You might have second thoughts next time you want to use me. Plus, you can't pack me in a carry-on," Lana says, smiling, confident. She keeps her tone light and a little superior, but the message is still a little more honest than she's comfortable with following up at length. She lets it go. "I know how this goes, Kalinda. I let you go and take all that shit with you and you interfere with something I'm working on or help Alicia Florrick guide the state's attorney off a felon or get yourself arrested at four in the morning and then I have to get out of bed to let you off, just so we can have a quick apology lunch a couple of days later where you sweet-talk your way into my bed and don't actually apologize at all or tell me anything important."

"You know everything important," Kalinda says. Her lips are a little swollen, spit-slick, and it's all Lana can do not to kiss her again. "You don't need me to fill you in. Half the time you know more important details than I do."

"I don't know what you're doing here," Lana points out.

"Maybe there's nothing to know." Kalinda straightens her shoulders. "As far as my guns are concerned, however, I do need them back. I will—"

"I'm not giving them to you."

"—I _will_ get them back, but you can keep them a while, if you'd like. Play with them. Work out the kinks."

"I know how to use a gun, Kalinda," Lana says. Kalinda knows that, of course, but it's second nature at this point to take Kalinda's words literally on purpose, to contradict her.

"Not every gun. You still have to learn each new one well, inside out, before you trust it to keep you safe. You should get to know mine." She arches up into Lana again, and her knee follows the movement, pressing up between Lana's thighs, rubbing hard and making her hiss. "How's that?"

It's good. It's too good to keep doing it in her boss's office. Lana takes a step back and moves her hand to Kalinda's knee, pushing it down. "Kalinda."

"Really," says Kalinda, lowering her lids in a mock-seductive way that's far more seductive than anything purposefully sexual, "keep them. I already got all I needed." She tilts her head. "Did you?"

Lana takes a deep breath and pushes through the frustration to get to that place where she's willing to take Kalinda at face value, where she lets herself dive in and capture her lips. Kissing Kalinda is less of a decision-making process than being kissed by her—probably because the decision to let her know Lana wants her gets taken beforehand.

After a while, Kalinda stops it. "I have to go," she says. She's still cuffed to the chair. Lana really should release her. For a start, she disentangles herself from Kalinda. "You should come by my place, later." Lana walks over to the table where she threw Kalinda's weapons, inspecting them. "You can disarm me again," Kalinda suggests. "More props, less security and time constraints."

"You're really confident I'm going to let you go, aren't you?"

"You're holding me for no reason," says Kalinda. "I'm not saying I didn't enjoy it, or wouldn't enjoy it again in less restrictive circumstances, but I do have somewhere to be." Lana sighs and steps over to Kalinda, gets the handcuffs off. "You're getting soft," Kalinda says—an accusation, because no good deed goes unpunished. Lana lets herself smile at that, and watches as Kalinda picks up her knives and guns one by one and makes a show of distributing them around her body before she even gets close to picking up her boot. It doesn't look like a conscious decision; it feels like Kalinda got so caught up in everything else she forgot one of her feet was bare. It evens the playing ground.

Lana nods, considering. "I didn't have you for someone who'd _ask_ to be disarmed."

Kalinda smiles off-center, just for a split second, says, "Someone has to."

"Really? I wasn't aware someone did."

Kalinda shrugs, still smiling. "Come by," she says, "I'll let you measure my luggage," and turns to leave. She only looks back at Lana when she's all the way across the office floor, a quick glance over her shoulder before disappearing down the stairs.

Lana turns a chair around and drops down on it, and lets herself breathe.


End file.
